I was skeptical about the Trail Gator and whether it would work well - particularly since I have a 14.5" frame Trek 29'er. Because of the small frame, I have to mount the Trail Gator way up high on my seat post in order to have enough clearance for the rear tire. I was concerned that the Trail Gator would bend my seat post. So concerned, in fact, that I bought a second seat post.

So far, it appears I didn't need to be concerned. The weight of the Trail Gator is lower than I expected... and the "tongue weight" (if you want to call it that) is pretty low with my (smallish) 6 year old on her 16" bike attached to the Trail Gator.

It is a bit more difficult for me to ride with her back there - but arguably, that just gives me a better workout.

I will say that assembly of the Trail Gator was considerable more difficult than I expected (and I've rebuilt motorcycle engines, installed a supercharger on my car, etc...). It wasn't that putting the relatively small number of parts together was difficult - it was getting them adjusted properly so that the smaller bike's wheel was far enough off the ground.

DO NOT completely tighten the bolts which are attached to the head tube of the smaller bike until you have checked the ground clearance of the smaller bike's front wheel (I tightened them first, found there wasn't enough clearance... and had to loosen, shim and re-tighten). Once you're sure the clearance is good with the small bike's front wheel, then tighten those bad boys as much as you can to avoid slippage. I went really tight and haven't had any issues (although I did check them again after the first ride).

I bought the gator a year ago we used it to pull my daughter because she was to big to ride in her trailer any more and wanted to rid her own bikeI would highly recommend any one that has small children that want to there own bike or want to feel like riding or get tired when riding on there own it is great for them to give them some freedom of riding there own bike

Bought this as a Father's Day gift for my husband. He put it together :) It took him a while- and he's hands on / mechanical. Also bought extra seat post kit so we can easily swap towing. My son is almost 3 yrs old and just got his first 12" bike- He loves the Trail Gator!It allows us to ride for miles and miles and teaches him balance. The tow bar is not as heavy as the little bike, but there is a definite added weight so be sure to compensate for that when braking. The bar that keeps his front wheels stationery is cheesy and pops off, Zip ties work great because they are easy to remove when they want to ride on their own. We do dirt/gravel roads, I try to steer around the potholes but that doesn't mean he gets around all of them. We are all really happy we went with this trail gator as opposed to a child seat because of his age / size. He had outgrown the yellow cart but could not yet keep up- perfect for our needs.

This is a nice product. A little complicated to assemble. I didn't feel the instructions were very clear. The only problem we have had is that I am under 5 feet tall so normally ride with the seat of my bike all the way down but because of the clearance needed to make this product work I had to raise my seat. It is not ideal but works ok. Wouldn't be a problem at all if I were a few inches taller.....